Modeling the new directive

Representatives of different countries and parties have developed this morning in Carlos III University of Madrid a debate on the different articles on the new European Financial Transaction Tax directive by presenting different amendments and proposals.

Participants of MEU before the debate || UC3M’s building 9

MARTA PITA ANDRADE

UC3M Journalist Student

March 12th, 2014

After yesterday morning’s conference session about tax havens in Europe, the session programmed for today was a debate in which, article by article, each representative member of every country has been able to make their amendments, as well as proposing the new more correct, under their point of view, writing of the whole (or part) of the articles, obviously according to their particular ideology.

The first article being discussed was number2, inwhich Daniel, member of the Greens and representingGermany, has proposed an amendment in the particular definition of what a multinational company should be. He considered they should be multinational from 150 million incomes and not from 250 as article 2 stated, in order to catch a huge range of tax evasion there is from 150 to 250.

Next discussion came from the right wing side on article 4, stating that “the Eurocompany simple information exchange is enough to falsify information and to mistakenly interpret; therefore it should be cut to one year”.

There were no other amendments until arrived to article 10, which was probably the most important discussion of the session. Ignacio, the representative of the German Greens, has manifested the lack of a concept of aggressive tax planning, proposing “some way of tax evasion by going through the small details of fiscal and taxation legal system”. Since some companies have a very big legal help, they will be able to avoid paying taxes. So Germans think abusive tax planning should be a concept to have in mind which country has harmful measures to avoid tax evasion.

Of course there was a right wing answer for his intervention, from the Bulgarian representative of Alde, stating that “if something is legal then it’s a dangerous idea for those who have favourable ways of attracting business to a country. It should be allowed as long as it is legal and transparent”.

They also pointed out that if not, there would be a violation of the principle of tax sovereignty of every country, to what Malta answered with a reflexion “joining the European Union, are you not giving away part of that sovereignty?”

Bulgariastayed in the same position, defending any country can be forced to have a flexible or not flexible system, as it is their own choice.

To finish up on this issue, the minister of Luxembourghas wanted to mention the principle of subsidiarity as the lowest possible form of government. He stated “it is not part of the EU decision making. Is it better tax systems favourable corporate taxes increasing their revenue, or is it better to have less business with a higher tax rate? In this case, the word “better” is a question of interpretation”